Oxide-nitride heteroepitaxy for low-loss dielectrics in superconducting quantum circuits
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2603.29065 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 30 Mar 2026] Title:Oxide-nitride heteroepitaxy for low-loss dielectrics in superconducting quantum circuits Authors:David A. Garcia-Wetten, Mitchell J. Walker, Peter G. Lim, André Vallières, Maria G. Jimenez-Guillermo, Miguel A. Alvarado, Dominic P. Goronzy, Anna Grassellino, Jens Koch, Vinayak P. Dravid, Mark C. Hersam, Michael J. Bedzyk View a PDF of the paper titled Oxide-nitride heteroepitaxy for low-loss dielectrics in superconducting quantum circuits, by David A. Garcia-Wetten and 11 other authors View PDF Abstract:Superconducting qubits show great promise for the realization of fault-tolerant quantum computing, but lossy, amorphous dielectrics limit current technology. Identifying highly crystalline and stoichiometric dielectrics with intrinsically low microwave loss is therefore a central materials challenge, yet experimentally validated platforms remain scarce. In this work, we integrate a crystalline dielectric into a heteroepitaxial TiN/$\gamma$-Al$_2$O$_3$/TiN trilayer grown via pulsed laser deposition. Correlative high-resolution imaging, diffraction, and spectroscopy measurements confirm the single-crystal quality and chemical integrity of all layers, with minimal defects and limited anion interdiffusion across the oxide-nitride interfaces. Using microwave lumped-element resonators with parallel-plate capacitors, we report the first direct measurement of the dielectric loss of epitaxial $\gamma$-Al$_2$O$_3$, for which we find a low intrinsic two-level system loss, $\delta_{\text{TLS}}^0 = (2.8 \pm 0.1) \times 10^{-5}$. These results establish heteroepitaxial oxides on transition metal nitrides as an attractive materials platform for superconducting quantum circuits, particularly for integration into compact device architectures such as merged-element transmons and microwave kinetic inductance detectors. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) Report number: FERMILAB-PUB-26-0206-SQMS Cite as: arXiv:2603.29065 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2603.29065v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.29065 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Peter Gilhwan Lim [view email] [v1] Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:05:18 UTC (6,534 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Oxide-nitride heteroepitaxy for low-loss dielectrics in superconducting quantum circuits, by David A. Garcia-Wetten and 11 other authorsView PDF view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.mtrl-sci cond-mat.supr-con References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)